Boats and Turtles Don't Mix...

I had to necropsy a dead sea turtle today. Don't worry -- I won't share the pictures!I really don't like necropsies. A sub-adult Kemp's Ridley washed up on Perdido Key after being hit by a boat. It's so sad to see that as a turtle at this stage has already outgrown most predators and had a very good chance of reaching maturity. We need adult turtles so we can have more nests and save these species from extinction. I buried it on the beach with a small crowd watching. Unfortunately, they had never seen a live turtle, so this was their first introduction.

I spent the rest of the day counting shorebirds on the north and south shores of Perdido -- it's something we do every ten days on the north shore and sixty times a year on the south shore. It's actually a lot of fun. There are a handful of little pocket beaches amidst the salt marshes on the north shore -- no one ever goes there. There were flocks of monarchs playing in the breeze, flitting from sea oats to sea ox-eye daisy, coloring the day. I love the way the sun creates shadows in their wings.



Heading back west, I surveyed the south shore, and stopped to pick up trash. A couple saw me struggling with a huge length of wire and actually stopped to help. They restored my faith in people -- not everyone is just throwing their beer cans in the sea :) After my week at Fort Pickens, I really needed that!

I think this picture sums up how I was feeling about trash yesterday. This crab was hanging out on the south shore, just getting a little sun on a chilly Saturday morning...

Explosions of Color

It's back to work today after a nice weekend away. I've never really had weekends, so it's a change for me -- it's like a mini-vacation every seven days! I never know quite what to do, so I find more work though I do try to stay away from the office. Simply doing something different, like working on my book, provides a great mental break and leaves me refreshed for a new week in the field.


I spent most of the day repairing the guideposts on what passes for a road at Fort Pickens. After Hurricane Ivan, the asphalt road was replaced, and washed away again by Hurricane Dennis. Now, there are two sections that still breach with every full moon high tide, and miles that are underwater if something tropical swings within 1000 miles. The sandy corridor is impassable, even to 4WD if it's really windy, so we're the only ones with access to the park via our ATVs just after a storm. I'll try to post a picture of the road next time I'm at Fort Pickens -- I totally spaced on that today! The picture above is road on high ground that wasn't destroyed.


There are two significant gaps along our seven miles of asphalt in this section of the park. The breaks have been good for the wildlife, and the severely decreased traffic has allowed for a lot of shorebird nesting and feeding. The new wetlands are full of migrating shorebirds -- semi-palmated and piping plovers, several species of herons and egrets, ospreys, brown pelicans, black terns, sandwich terns, sandpipers and peeps galore. It's a circus out there; this week, the migrating monarchs are joining in the fray.







It's great to see the animals back in the park, but the land itself is still in disarray, three years post-Ivan. Sometimes, there's an unexpected jolt of color that lifts the sombre scene. I love finding flowers like these growing in the midst of all the rubble. After a day spent staring at dusty grasses, burnt gold sea oats and grey, salt-killed trees, this impudent burst of sunlight tickles me to no end!


Here's another unexpected splash of color... Normally, I try to avoid these! They are truly graceful 'swimmers' for gelatinous water bags. They wash up with the tides from time to time and leave jelly flowers in the sand.
>


It's amazing how beautiful it can be out here if I just slow down and look, without being driven with an insatiable urge to get to the next task. Sometimes, I really do have to stop to smell the roses. If I don't, I'll miss the world around me and I won't know or care enough to protect the resources we all share.